Lessons from Joseph - How to Grieve

Yesterday I was busy cleaning out my email folder because I got a notice that said it was getting a bit stuffed. Since my account is set up to keep a copy of all sent messages, I first went there and selected all the files and deleted them. Seeing that this didn’t change my file usage any, I realized that I now had to go to my deleted file folder and officially delete them forever. Just as I was paging through them I noticed a big gap in time and some messages from a couple of years ago at the end. It suddenly occurred to me what I had done: I had deleted the last correspondence between my Mom and myself just before she died; messages that I had intentionally left in tact in prior clean-up sessions. Knowing now what I had done, I paged through them, read them one last time, and let them go, as the tears poured down my checks and soaked the front of my shirt.

That evening as I was reading to my children, our Bible story was about Joseph at the time when Jacob and the rest of the family had come to reside in Egypt during the long years of famine. Jacob’s dying wish had been to be buried with his ancestors (Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, and Leah) in a cave that was in the land where God had led them; the land of Canaan. Joseph enquired with the Pharaoh, received permission, and formed a caravan to take his father to the tomb in their homeland as promised.

The embalming of Jacob took 40 days. This Egyptian method of embalming was slow, but effective. After the embalming, there was another 70 days of mourning. Then the caravan transported him to his burial tomb (no telling how long this took), and still Joseph took another 7 days to stop and mourn for his father in his homeland before returning to Egypt. In all, it would likely have taken several months, start to finish. I found this quite interesting. And a far cry from how we say goodbye to loved ones these days! I daresay that our Creator has a better handle on what would constitute ‘bereavement’ than our modern and so-called advanced cultures do. Anyone who has suffered a great loss can tell you that the opportunities to grieve are quite insufficient in this fast-paced, over-scheduled, high stress, society of ours!

I am left to ponder these thoughts within myself. Grief happens in stages, and it can be very slow. I wonder if we were ever allowed to fully embrace it--like Joseph did--if in the long run it wouldn’t have been a shorter, and more healing, way to do it.

~Grace and Peace